Is joy a choice or is joy just a feeling that comes and goes?

That's a great question.

One our culture asks all the time.

And if our joy is a choice, whose choice is it ultimately?

That actually was the question I attempted to answer in my book, The Joy Project.

I know a number of you have read that book.

I think that's a better way to frame the essentials of Calvinism, the doctrines of grace,

the five points of Calvinism.

God sovereign joy in pursuit of us.

But here's the specific question on the table today as it comes to us from Susan in Chattanooga

Tennessee.

Pastor John, hello, and thank you for this podcast.

My question is pretty straightforward.

Can you tell me if joy in God is a choice that we make or is our joy in God a feeling that

comes to us after we do a certain something else first that will then lead to joy?

Here's an amazing fact to start off with.

If you consider all the forms of the word choose or choice or decide or decision, the

New Testament never applies those words to the act of choosing God or choosing Christ

or choosing Christianity.

I think that would come as a shock to a lot of people.

One almost exception is Mary choosing to sit at Jesus' feet while Martha did the housework,

but she's already a follower.

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